Bringing INnovation to onGOing water management – A better future under climate change

Project Information

BINGO

Grant agreement ID: 641739

DOI

10.3030/641739

Project closed

EC signature date 26 May 2015

Start date 1 July 2015

End date 30 September 2019

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 7 822 422,50

EU contribution

€ 7 822 422,50

Coordinated by

LABORATORIO NACIONAL DE ENGENHARIA CIVIL
Portugal

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - BINGO (Bringing INnovation to onGOing water management – A better future under climate change)

Reporting period: 2018-01-01 to 2019-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

BINGO was a 4-year (2015-2019) Horizon 2020 project that aimed at understanding the impacts of Climate Change on the water cycle in six research sites in Europe (Bergen in Norway, the Weluwe in the Netherlands, the Wupper River Basin in Germany, Badalona in Spain, the Tagus lower river basin in Portugal and the Troodos mountains in Cyprus), with 10 year climate predictions, assessing the risks for socio-economic activities and providing adaptation solutions for stakeholders.
BINGO aimed both at reducing the uncertainty of near-term climate predictions and developing response strategies that may help society to better manage the remaining uncertainty. As such, BINGO provided to sectors using water resources such as drinking water supply, agriculture, hydropower and water resources management, demand driven solutions for specific climate-related-challenges in Europe that focus on different geographical scales and are usable by a diverse spectrum of end users such as water managers and professionals, decision-makers, policy-makers and the society at large. After developing decadal climate predictions with a specific focus on extreme events (droughts and floods), BINGO modelled the impacts of changing climate on the water cycle and water demands, and analyzed how this could affect water availability and storage and the key sectors under scope. The assessment of risks and vulnerabilities allowed BINGO to establish adaptation measures considering the transferability of results. These measures were built taking into account the critical socio-economic factors, financing and policy contexts as well as scenarios of land use, urban pressures and water demands. All solutions were co-produced, tested and validated by key end users at the six research sites.
The referred six research sites were chosen to represent challenges in terms of water management options and approaches and have been selected based on relevant criteria and covering a representative range of conditions. There is a large variability of situations that BINGO tackled, both from the climate scenarios and the water cycle changes perspectives.
For more details we suggest visit the BINGO website (http://www.projectbingo.eu/) or go directly to the BINGO Ebook: (http://www.projectbingo.eu/sites/default/files/Ebook_WEB.pdf).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The process of the work in BINGO followed the following methodology:
1) Climate predictions and downscaling to extreme weather - BINGO used climate models to simulate the present climate, as well as ten-year predictions and future projections. The climate data produced in BINGO were disseminated via an online “Data Extraction and COnversion” tool (DECO) at the Freie Universität Berlin’s Freva portal.
2) Integrated analysis of the water cycle - based on the data produced from the climate predictions, BINGO performed an integrated analysis of the water cycle for the 6 research sites. The analysis used a range of hydrologic, hydrodynamic and other hydro models, in accordance with the specific needs of each site and previous modelling work.
3) Assessment of the impacts of extreme weather events- based on the outputs coming from the climate predictions and the integrated analysis of the water cycle (hazard), BINGO assessed the risk associated with existing socio-economic activities, which results fed the risk treatment phase, based on ISO 31000. The main outputs were: i) risk tolerance levels and vulnerabilities related to floods and droughts; ii) the extent to which hazards associated with decadal climate predictions increase; iii) the risks for socioeconomic activities and people at each research site; iv) Warning and action indicators suggested in order to identify progression of Climate Change; and v) the adequate time to implement certain adaptation measures.
4) Developing risk treatment and adaptation strategies for extreme weather events - BINGO delivered aggregated values in terms of benefits, cost simulations and social added values of adaptation strategies and measures per research site. BINGO provided the recommendations for implementing the best transition path for each site, dealing with concrete (detailed) results. Additionally, a portfolio of adaptation measures was developed that can be used online.
5) Ensuring Excellence and Actionable Research -BINGO provided an innovative structure to improve communication among researchers and non-researchers having produced design guidelines for win-win collaborations. Because of the successful experience, BINGO could offer a set of tools designed to ensure that researchers and end users/decision makers are able to co-produce knowledge, leading to high level research designed to give answers to the society needs.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

BINGO has deployed a range of strategies to ensure a significant impact on water-related sectors across Europe. It provides decision-makers with better and more detailed knowledge of their water cycle under future climate, and with a portfolio of specific adaptation measures based on latest results from national, European and international research. BINGO was able to:
• Improve the decadal prediction of future climate, including extreme events
• Co-produce better prediction tools for climate change impacts on quantity and quality of water resources
• Develop adaptation/integrated management strategies, validated and tailored to the local-scale and its natural and socio-economic constraints
• Implement effective dissemination and exploitation to ensure that measures are transferred to end users – e-book (http://www.projectbingo.eu/resources/ebook) DECO open access data platform (https://freva.met.fu-berlin.de/) videos (http://www.projectbingo.eu/content/videos) guidelines (http://www.projectbingo.eu/output/guidelines) publications (http://www.projectbingo.eu/content/publications) reports (http://www.projectbingo.eu/content/deliverables) policy briefs (http://www.projectbingo.eu/content/policy-briefs)
• Co-produce an online portfolio of management practices and adaptation strategies with transfer potential across the EU (http://beta.tools.watershare.eu/bingo/$/)
• Develop and strengthen the transferability of management practices/adaptation measures to other EU sites within similar climatic regions – BINGO was broadcasted by Euronews in 158 countries and 13 languages (https://www.euronews.com/2017/07/10/climate-change-and-europe-s-water-supply)
• Organise the European Climate Change Adaptation Conference (ECCA 2019).
Moreover, H2020 BINGO influenced other dimensions of sustainability:
• Improve innovation capacity by strengthening early end-user involvement to facilitate the integration of new knowledge into real practice.
• Social impact in terms of social justice, vulnerability and affordability, as well as economic impact, through a special focus on the economic, societal and policy implications of possible measures and by recommendations for implementing the best transition path for each site, as well as recommendations for transfer to other regions.
• Environmental Impact was achieved by a scenario approach where a ‘sustainability first’ criteria was relevant to the analysis.
• Governance and Policy Impact through analysis and recommendations of improvements. Four Policy-briefs were produced and disseminated.
The BINGO legacy is being kept alive for the next decade thought the new BINGO website repository, retrofitted for long-term operation.

Illustration of climate change extreme events:droughts

Illustration of climate change extreme events: floods